Word: houbolt
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...John C. Houbolt, 50, former chief of theoretical mechanics at NASA's Langley Research Laboratories in Hampton, Va. Houbolt, a civil engineer, is responsible for the lunar-orbit rendezvous that is the key maneuver in Apollo's entire flight plan. In what he remembers as "an intuitive flash," Houbolt realized that tremendous weight savings would be gained by this rendezvous method, permitting the use of a smaller launch vehicle. Often scorned by colleagues, Houbolt fought a two-year battle, finally put his job on the line by appealing directly to NASA headquarters. His arguments prevailed in the fall...
...Houbolt argued that the concept would save an immense amount of fuel. Because the lunar lander would not need a heavy heat shield for a return through the earth's atmosphere and would not have to carry additional equipment and supplies for the long trip to and from the moon, it could be tens of thousands of pounds lighter than other lunar landing vehicles. The weight reduction would be great enough, he calculated, for the entire mission to be launched by one Saturn 5-type rocket...
Dour Rejection. Sure that he had the answer, Houbolt attended meetings of NASA's moonshot planning group to promote the lunar-orbit-rendezvous (LOR) scheme. His reception was cool. "Your figures lie," shouted one excitable member of the group. "I don't believe a word of it." Wernher von Braun, present at the same meeting, dourly shook his head at Houbolt's proposal and said, "No, that's no good." Recalls Christopher Kraft, director of NASA's manned-flight operations: "When some people first heard of Houbolt's idea, they thought he was nuts...
Convinced that he was right, Houbolt went over the heads of the planning group by writing letters to Robert Seamans, then NASA Associate Administrator (and now Secretary of the Air Force). One of them began: "Somewhat as a voice in the wilderness . . ." It went on to plead, "Give us the go-ahead and we will put men on the moon in very short order." Gradually, as the difficulties with alternate plans became evident, Seamans and others began to realize the virtues of Houbolt's scheme...
Last week, as they prepared for the forthcoming Apollo 9 mission, officials in Houston paid tribute to Houbolt, who quit NASA in 1963 and now works for an aeronautical-research firm in Princeton, N.J. "I just thank my lucky stars that guys like Houbolt came along," said Caldwell Johnson, chief of the manned-spacecraft-design office. "I suppose that Columbus had some help...